


There Will be War

by for_t2



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra
Genre: Blood, Deal with a Devil, Depression, Doom, F/F, Heavy Angst, Letters, Loneliness, Loss, Noodle Bars, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Not Canon Compliant, Omens & Portents, Pre-Season/Series 04, Self-Hatred, Spirits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 14:21:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29826288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/for_t2/pseuds/for_t2
Summary: Hiding from the world in a run-down corner of Republic City, Korra gets offered a deal she shouldn't accept
Relationships: Korra/Asami Sato
Comments: 6
Kudos: 9





	There Will be War

Dear… Asami. Dear Asami. Dear…

“Spirits!” The flames burst out of Korra’s palm before she had a chance to control them, leaping not only at her latest failed attempt of a letter but across the wobbly wooden table. “Sorry!” It took her a second too long to reach out and bring the fire back into rhythm, a second which it never used to take her.

A second it wasn’t supposed to take her.

“Spirits.” She swore again under her breath as the bar’s cook glared at her. As she watched the parchment burn in a crumped ball in her palm. As the ashes of the letter drifted down into the tepid broth of the cheapest noodles Republic City had to offer.

It wasn’t supposed to be this hard to write a letter either.

Which just made everything worse. It was like, over the last three years, she hadn’t just lost her bending, hadn’t just lost her ability to feel her legs, but also her ability to use words. She had hardly been a poet to begin with, but now just speaking more than a few simple words made her voice go hoarse and trying to put any words to parchment made her head ache.

It was hard not to miss the first few days after the fight, when the pain was too vivid to think, and when the healers’ sedatives meant she didn’t need to think. At least then she didn’t need to lie to herself. Didn’t need to lie to anyone else. And if she couldn’t even find the words to write one letter, how was she supposed to find the words to stand before them and tell them she hoped they could forgive her.

It was pathetic. She was the Avatar and here she was, slumped down on a stained bench in the shittiest noodle bar in the city, and she didn’t even want to move.

Which, to be fair, was probably a good idea considering the quality of the food. Her stomach didn’t like it when she started moving too much after eating here, and she was pretty sure she had gotten food poisoning at least a couple of times in the last week. Imagine what Aang would say if he could see his great accomplishment, his great united city so peaceful that half its citizens couldn’t even afford noodles that gave them food poisoning and the other half buying them with money brought from the underground.

Imagine what Aang would say if he could see her, his glorious reincarnation as the Avatar, moping while her friends were…

Were out there. Living their lives.

Maybe it was better if—

“Avatar Korra, I presume?”

Korra glared at the intrusion into her table. At the woman smiling at her. This bar wasn’t just cheap, it was also a good place to eat alone. “I think you’ve got the wrong person.” When the intrusion didn’t move away, Korra decided she could brave noodles (third time lucky, maybe) and grabbed her bag.

“Oh, come on.” Korra barely had the chance to jump up before something tickled her spine. Something powerful. Something that made every muscle that was left in her freeze. Something that felt a lot like spirit energy. “I’ve come all this way.”

For an agonising second, Korra imagine that she’d see those glowing eyes if she turned back. But it had been so long since she had last felt spirit energy. So long. “Who are you?”

But when she finally managed to turn her head back, it was still just a woman leaning back on the bench of the other side of her table. Smirking. “Sit.”

Korra followed the order without thinking, but her muscles stayed tense, stayed ready to run. Whoever the woman was, Korra didn’t think she could fight her. “You’re a bender.”

“A bender?” The woman chuckled. “That would be fun, wouldn’t it? But no, I’m just here to bring you a message.” Her smirk got a little wider. “And, if you want, a long overdue offer.”

Korra glanced around the bar quickly to make sure no one was watching them. “What type of offer?”

“I’ve har to work hard to hunt you down, Avatar.” The woman shrugged. “Couldn’t you at least buy me a drink first?”

Korra glared at her. “No.”

“Fair enough,” the woman chuckled, unfazed by the rejection. “It’s just been so long since any human’s bought me a drink, what with the barriers between this world and the spirit world and all that.” She grabbed a cold noodle left over from Korra’s bowl instead and slurped on it. “Barriers which don’t exist anymore.”

“You’re a spirit.” Korra didn’t hesitate. She may not have been much of an Avatar lately, but she knew.

“Yes, I am, Avatar.” The spirit’s smirk managed to get even wider. “I hope this form I’ve taken is good enough for you.” It lifted it’s hand up, turning the human skin over in the dim light. “Unless, of course, you’d rather—”

“No!” Korra was on her feet again, fire pooling in the veins of her hands, before the spirit managed to finish shifting into a shape that looked too much like Asami. It took Korra a few seconds of breathing, of forced mediation that didn’t really work, before she realised that the cook was glaring at her again, and so were a handful of the other customers, interrupted by her outburst in the middle of their drunken slurps. “Sorry.”

The spirit laughed, and Korra decided she hated the sound, while Korra sat back down. While she waited for the bar to turn their attentions back away from them. “They weren’t wrong when they said you had spirit.”

Korra tried to focus on her breathing for a few more seconds. “I’m not in the mood for this.”

“I am, but fine.” The spirit’s smirk lessened to something slightly more serious. “You’ve opened portals that have been closed for millennia, Korra.”

“It was the right thing to do.”

“Maybe, but the spirit world’s a big place.” The spirit almost sneered at the bar around them. “Much bigger than this world. And there are reasons why those portals were closed in the first place. Reasons that many of us never agreed with, but reasons that we’ve learned to live with.”

The last thing Korra wanted was another lecture on the spirits. “Get to the point.”

“The point, Avatar Korra, is that you’ve started a new era.” The spirit’s smirk crept back into the corners of her lips. “And new eras rarely begin peacefully.”

“But…” Korra had already defeated Unalaq. Had defeated Vaatu. That battle was supposed to be over. It… “What do you mean?”

“There are rumours, already, coming from the Earth Empire, of a weapon unlike any either world has ever seen. Of a weapon so powerful that it could destroy air itself.” The spirit shrugged. “And that’s just one weapon in one corner of one world. Even if that tinpot dictator is defeated, do you really think it’s going to be the last one?”

Korra hadn’t heard rumours. She hadn’t heard much at all, really, from any part of the world in the last three years. She had heard a sentence or two about someone called the Great Uniter but didn’t see why she needed to know. If the world was in danger, it needed an Avatar that was capable of fighting, and Korra just wasn’t… “How do I stop it?”

“That’s the problem.” The spirit rolled its eyes, and Korra was extremely tempted to try and punch them out. “You can stop this one. You probably would stop this one. But it’s just going to be the first. It might not happen immediately, but there will be more. And each one will be more terrible than the last.”

“Just tell me how to stop it.”

“The injuries you suffered aren’t easy to heal. What are you going to do the next time something hits your spine? The third time?” Korra couldn’t stop herself from flinching at the mention of her injury. “What you need to understand, Korra, is that this new era is just getting started. There will be war.”

Korra was out of patience. “You said you had an offer for me.”

“I do.” The spirit straightened up on the bench, all traces of its smirk gone. “The wars to come won’t all happen soon. I can’t predict the future, but the worst of them probably won’t even begin to start for years. You have time to warn the worlds. To prepare the worlds.” The spirit paused for a brief moment before shrugging. “And, if you want, you’ll have time to make sure the world has an Avatar who’s ready to fight those wars.”

An Avatar who’s… “No.” The words were out of Korra’s mouth a split second before the realisation hit her. “No.”

“It wouldn’t kill you. It would push the cycle—”

“No!” Korra couldn’t believe the suggestion. There was no way. No way. “I’m not giving up being the Avatar. I’m not!”

The spirit shrugged. “Okay.” Stretched itself up off the bench. “It was just an offer that needed to be made. Not everyone in the worlds is here to work against you, Avatar Korra. You should understand that too.”

The spirit took three steps away from the table, away from Korra, before Korra found herself speaking. “Wait.”

The spirit stopped. Glanced back. Waited. And waited. “This offer won’t last forever. The spiritual convergence that makes it possible will soon—”

“Do it.” Korra barely heard herself speak. Barely heard her own thoughts as they piled up in head, as if they were trying to make her skull burst from the inside. She couldn’t give up being the Avatar. She couldn’t give up. But… But she wasn’t much of an Avatar, was she? “Do it.”

The spirit raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”

No. Of course not. But if there was going to be war, if the world was going to be in danger, if her friends were going to be in danger… When she had first gotten back home at the South Pole, Tenzin had told her that when she recovered, she would be welcomed back to Air Temple with open arms, but the last time he had visited, she had overheard him telling her parents that if she recovered, but it was just a dream, but Korra wasn’t sure if it was anymore, but… “Yes.”

The spirit examined her before nodding. “We know this isn’t a choice you make lightly, and we applaud anyone who would make such a great sacrifice. It’s the mark of a true Avatar.” The spirit reached out to take Korra’s hands. “But the universe works on balances. If I’m to do this service for the Avatar, I’m going to need something from the Avatar.”

“Something else?” The spirits were already going to take away her status as the Avatar, and they wanted more? It wasn’t fair. But yet the spirit still nodded. And, in the end, was the world really fair? Wasn’t that why the Avatar existed, the role the Avatar was supposed to play in the universe? Wasn’t it? And, Korra… Korra wanted to be the Avatar. Korra needed to be the Avatar. “What do you need?”

“It needs to be something of equal spiritual value to the service that we’re offering to the Avatar. It will be a lot to ask.” The spirit waited for Korra to nod assent. Then waited a second longer, shutting its eyes briefly. “There is a great love between you and Asami Sato, isn’t there?”

Korra almost bit her tongue off to stop herself from shouting no. She thought it would be something like a quest to fetch a golden… something, anything, but not that. She couldn’t do that. Couldn’t imagine a world in which she didn’t love Asami. Didn’t want to imagine it, even if it was something that she kept a secret to her grave. “I can’t.”

“I know.”

“No, no you don’t!” Korra could taste the blood inside her mouth. “Asami is…” Everything. “I love her.”

“The Avatar’s wisdom is always vast.” The spirit didn’t move away from Korra. “Is there anything else you could offer?”

“I…” There had to be something. Anything. There… Korra’s voice broke. “No.”

The spirit stayed silent. Waited.

And Korra felt so small, so out of ideas, out of everything, that that voice in the back of her head whispering that she was acting like she would do anything for Asami yet couldn’t even muster up the courage to stop hiding from her almost knocked her down to her knees. Made the taste of vomit join the blood on her tongue. “I… I don’t know.”

“It’s okay.” The spirit’s voice was so close to Katara’s, the sympathy Korra had heard ever day when she was trying to heal, that Korra felt even smaller. “The spirits trust you. The Avatar has always found a way to do the impossible.

The Avatar always does. But Korra… Korra managed to steady herself. To hold herself up. To stop her voice from trembling. “Do it.”

“Are you sure?”

This time, Korra didn’t hesitate. Asami didn’t an Avatar who couldn’t fight, and she didn’t need a friend who couldn’t even write to her. “Yes.”

“Very well.”

The spirit placed its fingers on Korra’s forehead and Korra shut her eyes instinctively. Braced herself.

It only took a second.

It didn’t even hurt.

“It’s done.”

And the ground slipped out from under her feet. It was still there, but it was so empty, it was like it wasn’t solid. Korra could feel the blood dripping from the side of her head where it hit the bench as she fell, but she couldn’t feel the water in it. And the air… she couldn’t feel the flow. She couldn’t feel anything. It was… It was like the world was empty. Like she was so, so alone and…

And Asami.

Asami. Korra needed to make sure she was okay. She needed to warn her of the wars to come. She needed to…

She wanted Asami.

She wanted to hug Asami and hold on to her and cry her arms and for Asami to hug her and tell that everything would be alright and that she… Korra frowned. “I don’t feel…” She wanted Asami. She loved Asami. “Asami?”

“The love between you has been taken.”

“But I’m still…” Korra was going to vomit. “What did you do to her?”

“Asami Sato has so much anger inside her.” The spirit grinned, savouring the words. “I can’t wait to see what it’s going to look like without you getting in its way.”

Korra couldn’t breathe.

“And remember, Korra,” the spirit crouched down in front of her one last time before the pounding of her heart pushed her into unconsciousness, its eyes glinting a darker shade of black than Korra had ever seen. “There will be war.”


End file.
